EA have done that sort of thing for other games and decides I do'nt have seasons yet as it does not appear to be out in the uk. I am having trouble with sims 3 anyway at the moment.

I know they can't be created in CAS, I meant editing existing ones to modify their appearance using the edit in CAS option in Master Controller. It's worked in the past with other things that can't be created from scratch (like Imaginary Friends and SimBots) but I felt I'd better check it worked already with aliens to avoid attempting it before Master Controller had been properly updated to allow it.

Anybody tried that? I can't do it myself at the moment, Seasons isn't out here yet.

I read that while the increase in abduction chance is measly for telescope, it increases drastically if you collect space rocks. Something like 1-5% increase for telescope and 90% for space rocks.

Yep, you can edit them in CAS with MC just fine. Their eyes, however, remain black.

Thanks. And that's fine, I was only thinking of modifying their faces to appear more inhuman via increased slider ranges (larger eyes, much smaller, flatter noses, etc) rather than changing their skin or eye colour. Mainly so I can recreate some of my TS2 alien characters.

I was playing around with an alien in CAS earlier, and I noticed something quite odd - the toad heads from Supernatural, when applied to an alien, retain the black alien eyes, and not the yellow sclera with black pupil that it generally has. Also, when I switched the male alien to a female alien in CAS, and went to the tattoo screen, the female retained the male body shape, albeit with the female texture stretched over it.

But more curiously, I couldn't fathom where the black alien eyes are kept in CAS - they're under neither accessories nor costume makeup, and they certainly aren't attached to the skin, as I changed the skin a number of times and the black eyes remained. Perhaps this could open an avenue for modders to develop a way for us to have several different eye textures, a la Sims 2? Still, no luck in changing the status of a sim from "human" to alien, so I guess I'll just have to wait for Treeag to update his Simtransformer.

EDIT: Just discovered that aliens are not immune to zombie bites like the supernatural sims are, and, through CAS, I managed to make my aliens occults, but I couldn't make it happen through the debugging menu. Also discovered an option in the debugging menu to check a sim's DNA for alien genetics - the game keeps track of the percentage of alien DNA present and whether or not alien powers are present.

Coming out of lurking to share what I know about the aliens.
Was playing with them last night, and now, after force creating one.... thanks to this thread.

Firstly, they can be taken back into Cas and have their sliders adjusted.
There are also a few new sliders for them, not sure if they are there for regular sims or not. Alien eye, alien eye modifier, and alien ear point.

On the topic of eyes, for some reason mine in game do not appear black. They do on the little portrait on the side and bottom of the screen, but on on the actual sim. Its probably a mod conflict.... my thinking is maybe a similar issue to like that of what was with the fairies and the mosaic mods.

Also, there is no hidden trait for aliens like there is for the other creatures. Least not that I am seeing. Again, could just be an issue of mods not being updated completely.

I'm not too sure that this is how aliens work - like I said in my last post, the game accommodates sim-alien hybrids, so I don't think hidden traits are at play here - I do recall hearing the producers say that aliens weren't true occults, but rather sims with unique genes.

EDIT: Spawned triplets between an alien and a normal female sim - each of the babies has a different percentage of alien DNA (between 47% and 53%), and all will have alien powers when they're teens, according to debugs. I'll force them to age up, make a few more generations and see when the alien powers start to wane.

It does seem to help to collect space rocks. I conducted a not-so-scientific experiment: five nights, just looking out the telescope, and my sim was not abducted. I sent her out to collect space rocks, and she managed to find six. That night--BAM! Abducted.

Someone also mentioned that traits may have something to do with it, but I'm not quite sure of this. My sim's traits are loner, loves the outdoors, genius, green thumb, and excitable.

EDIT: I had her stargaze the following night, and she was abducted again, so collecting space rocks seems to help. I have a question, though: I thought abducted sims came back pregnant? She hasn't been knocked up, although she was abducted twice. Or am I misinformed?

You mean that part you edited in? Cause that wasnt there when I posted, and the first part mentions nothing about occult states other than the frog head.... which isnt really an occult state


May have figured out a 'round about' way to make pre-existing sims into aliens.
You have to save them to the bin in Cas, and then take an alien sim back into Cas and make them 'adopt' the appearance of said sim.

Yeah, I was thinking of something like that - I remember being able to save faces as custom presets in The Sims 2, and was wondering how to go about doing that in The Sims 3. How would I go about making the alien adopt the appearance of a binned sim?

Using Twallan's Master Controller (at least, this is how I did it) I took the alien back into Cas. On the lower left side of the screen is the 'Pre-made Sims' bin. Opening that up, I just selected another sim, and then accepted the changes.

Alien retained their alien powers and genetics while taking on the looks and traits of the binned sim.

According to an XML number on this, 20% Alien DNA is the minimum to still be considered an alien. Presumably, any sim with less than this will be human and won't have any alien powers.

Works like a charm! Thanks for that, I wonder if the same principle applies to the occult sims...but from what I've seen so far, aliens work in a rather different way to the other occults.

You can call aliens on the phone once you've met them. My sim has chatted quite a bit to her alien friend. Haven't tried inviting her over yet.

So far I've had two individuals from the same house abducted three times. The male sim has been abducted once and the female sim twice. Each time they've stayed up past midnight doing random things around the house (they don't own a telescope) and one of them goes out to investigate resulting in an abduction but no babies at this point. The only thing that's been consistent with the abductions is that my sims are up into the late hours of the evening. These late night activities have ranged from writing on the computer to cleaning house to doing laundry.

Yup, I figured this out eventually Seems they function just like tourists. Guess they get a cell signal on their UFOs

I just had an alien randomly show up at the house. My sim was out making snowmen and invited him to join. Together they made a grim reaper snowman I haven't been able to reproduce.

My teen Sim has been abducted three times now, all at night, all one night right after the other. No crying, but she's pretty peeved off. Wasn't looking through a telescope, either. I actually had set her to go eat...

Male "pregnancy" via alien abduction accomplished! Let me just say, alien pregnancy is way easier on male sims than normal pregnancy is on female sims. Even in electronic form, the universe is still cosmically unfair.

(I collected space rocks and used the telescope. The man got pregnant the second time he was abducted.)

Some screencaps below, with spoilers in the descriptions. Don't click if you don't want to know!

how long was he pregnant for?

did he get maternity leave like females?

and ive never had problems getting my female sims pregnant, 90% of the time they get pregnant first time, the other 10% is second time. maybe my sims are freakiliy super-fertile...

(off topic, but has anyone else notice maternity leave got longer with patch 1.42? or am i imagining it? :/

Weird, I have the exact opposite issue in my game. I had a woman never change into materiny wear, show, or get leave. She still had the moodlet for pregnancy and the usual options that get disabled for pregnant sims were still disabled. I was starting to think the pregnancy was broken... then she had triplets. And that night she became my first abduction. No pregnancy from that though

hmm... i have noticed i still get notifications that the carpool will arrive in an hour when shes on maternity leave, but it doesnt turn up. it does mean i have to check everyday to see if shes supposed to go to work or not though :/

Does anyone know if female Sims can get pregnant by abduction too or is it just the male sims? I know in the past it has only been male Sims so I'm doubting it's been changed for Sims 3. Still, would be nice to get my female Sim pregnant with an alien baby without having to go through the whole relationship thing.

The "unexpected weight gain" (i.e. male pregnancy) started when the 8 hour "abducted" moodlet wore off, and lasted for two days, at which point he gave birth. He did not get any maternity leave before the baby was born, though I think he did get some after.